Venus at the Forge of Vulcan

Description

This painting depicts the passage in Virgil’s Aeneid, where Venus, accompanied by Cupid, appeals to her husband Vulcan to make armor for her son Aeneas. The painting also praises the Renaissance metalworker, whose wide range of products are represented, from jewelry to arms and armor. The tools are those used by armorers, including hammers, anvils and large shears for cutting metal plate. At the right, assistants operate tilt-hammers, and behind them, “millmen” polish with grinding and buffing wheels. The subject depicted here is taken from antiquity. As recorded in the Aeneid, Venus, the Roman goddess of love, asks her husband Vulcan, the god of metalworking, to make armor for her son, Aeneas. This scene, however, celebrates metalworking as it was executed in the Renaissance. Every stage of the craft is depicted: laborers dig iron ore from bogs; smelters extract iron from the ore; water-powered triphammers beat slag out of the metal; hammermen flatten the iron into plates; and the master craftsman—Vulcan himself—shapes the metal into its final form before it goes to the water-powered polishing wheels. Strewn about are metal products that range from arms and armor to coins and kitchenware.